Patterns
Ask users for…
Email address
Use: Deployed
Follow this pattern to ask a user for an email address.
Usage
When to use this pattern
- When you need to collect an email address. For example, for contact information.
Examples
Default
Prefill information
Asking for an email address
How to design and build
How this pattern works
- Prepopulate email address from profile whenever possible. This makes it easier for users as they have one less field to complete.
- Adding an email confirmation field. The email confirmation field is unnecessary if we’re using the email from a profile. Also, it’s not useful for catching errors as most users copy and paste and don’t review their initial entry.
- If possible, tell users why you want their email address. Users need to know that the VA won’t abuse their email and which email they’d like to provide. An example message is: We may use your contact information so we can get in touch with you if we have questions about your application.
- Validate email addresses. You should validate email addresses so you can let users know if they have entered one incorrectly.
- Inform users when prefilling information from VA.gov profile. Notify users that information from their profile has been prefilled into the form. An example message is: We’ve prefilled some of your information from your account.
- Indicate to users whether an update in this form will update their VA.gov profile. Notify users that a change will not update their VA.gov profile. An example message is: Any updates you make here will only apply to this application.
Content considerations
Error message templates for email addresses
When a user doesn’t enter an email address:
Say ‘Please enter an email address’
When a user enters an invalid email address:
Say ‘Please enter a valid email address’
When an email address is above the 50-character limit:
Say ‘We don’t support email addresses that exceed 50 characters’